The Campaign

We unearthed the insight: Surprisingly, most last words are heard by nurses, not families. This happens because doctors keep even terminally ill patients in ICUs where they do receive the best medical care but are also isolated from their families.
The creative idea: Could these dying last words – so far unheard by families – bring alive the need for palliative care? We interviewed more than 200 nurses across India and the most heart-rending last words they heard became the heart of our campaign – the online video.
The campaign used these real last words to start conversations on palliative care, then providing detailed information on palliative care to interested doctors, and finally supporting action through pledges to “offer palliative care to my patients”.

Creative Execution

200 nurses were interviewed across India and the most heart-rending last words they heard became our film. The film was launched by the Human Rights Commissioner, with hundreds of doctors pledging to offer palliative care to their patients.
Social media became our launch vehicle digitally to reach the 100,000 socially active Indian doctors, giving the campaign scale and initiating conversations. The clickable video got doctors to the website where they could learn more about palliative care and pledge.
Palliative care associations across the world were approached to endorse the campaign and strengthen credibility.
The doctor campaign was complemented by a consumer campaign that eventually spanned social and digital media and PR.

The real last words resonated with doctors and consumers, each sharing personal stories. The campaign even served as a catharsis, with thousands confessing to have missed hearing the last words of their loved ones. Many doctors committed to offer palliative care to their patients, while one even promised to start a palliative care hospital.
The campaign reached a confirmed 50,000+ doctors online and probably a majority of Indian doctors were reached through the consumer campaign based on the same film. The consumer campaign achieved 100 million impressions and 8 million rupees of unpaid media, even trending at no. 3 on Twitter.
But real success was achieved when international palliative care associations adopted the campaign, as did members of parliament.
The last words are finally being heard.

This campaign was focused on changing doctor behaviour to consider palliative care for terminally ill patients.
But for this, the doctor and caregivers first need to accept that the patient’s death is imminent. This created the need to reach both doctors and consumers to establish the need for palliative care through our online video.
In India, talking about death is taboo. Achieving cultural change required initiation of conversations through influencers, unpaid media and peers. Hence, social media & online PR became one of our core platforms. On social media, we used real last words to start conversations on palliative care amongst doctors and patients.
While having family around at the time of death does drive this need, palliative care includes several other support areas. This required platforms providing detailed information.

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